This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Groundwater and waste streams can be contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which require removal in order to reuse or discharge the water. Air strippers which direct streams of air into a flowing stream of the contaminated water are used to transfer the VOCs from the water (aqueous phase) to the air stream (gaseous phase) which permits removal of the VOCs. Known air strippers include tower designs and stacked designs.
Known stack designs provide for a cascading downward flow of the contaminated water having multiple interior compartments contained within a sealed cabinet. The contaminated water is typically pumped to a receiving manifold of a flow distribution piping assembly consisting of multiple elbows, couplings, flanged/gasket joints, and using multiple threaded fasteners and nuts to construct. The flow distribution piping assembly is normally assembled and entirely supported on an upper wall of the cabinet and extends an upper space envelope of the cabinet significantly. Additional distribution headers and piping connections must be incorporated within the cabinet to distribute the contaminated water to the multiple interior compartments. Known flow distribution piping assemblies are therefore expensive and time consuming to build, and time consuming to disassemble for system maintenance and/or cleaning.